Reconstruction talk:Proto-Indo-European/peḱ-

Ancient Greek πέκος

Ancient Greek πέκος ‘fleece, wool’ is currently ascribed to both of the first two roots: peḱ- ‘to pluck’, and peḱ- ‘livestock; wealth’. --Caoimhin (talk) 17:23, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

The problem persists. An additional problem: how should a meaning "fleece, wool" derive from a meaning "livestock; wealth"? I strongly suspect the second root is simply spurious and both *peḱu- and *péḱos ~ *péḱes- should be placed under the first root. Latin pecus may be a reformation ultimately going back to *peḱu-, so the s-stem is limited to Greek; alternatively, the s-stem may have been present in Italic with the meaning "fleece, wool" too, but changed its meaning in Latin under the influence of pecū. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:02, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, Italian pecora means “sheep”. I can easily imagine words for both “fleece” and “livestock” being related to this! What's more, the third root is supposed to mean both “joyful” and “pretty”, and I can well imagine a verb for “comb”, “detangle” resulting in a word meaning “pretty” in the sense of being well dolled-up. We have “unkempt” in English for generally untidy appearances, and it literally means “uncombed”. Perhaps all of these words go back to only one or two roots. Correctrix (talk) 13:49, 4 February 2021 (UTC)